Conan O'Brien and his team create a spoof Apple commercial in which the company's "Torture Division" swears revenge against the thief of a missing iPhone 5 prototype. YouTube

September 12, 2011

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The video: In a bizarre case that has captivated the tech world, an Apple employee apparently left a prototype of the highly anticipated iPhone 5 in a San Francisco tequila bar — the second time in as many years that one of the company's workers lost an iPhone prototype at a local watering hole. While an extraordinary, "sketchy" hunt for the phone's whereabouts has so far floundered, Conan O'Brien took the opportunity to imagine what Apple would do if and when it finds the perpetrators in a "hilarious spoof" that aired last week on TBS' Conan. (Watch the clip below.) Against the sort of clean, white backdrop seen in Apple's real ads, executives with titles like "President, Torture Division" outline Apple's strategy: "We are planning things that will make Vlad the Impaler look like f***ing Mr. Rogers."

The reaction: Apple's habit of losing iPhones in bars maybe be a "bummer for Apple, but also, kind of funny," says Mat Honan at Gizmodo. The whole ordeal couldn't be better suited for Team Coco, says Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune. Apple's target demographic lines up perfectly with with his "young, hip, well-heeled and wired" audience. Check it out: